HA!
No fabricated stench of stale corduroyed elbow pads is going
to fool you, is it?
Nope. I can hear you mumbling: “Here comes a daddy blogger,
rancid with the odour of routine. I bet he rises at 7, asks himself, ‘what good
am I going to do today?’ excitedly plots the 17-hours he’s going to be awake,
before retiring to the fart sack having challenged himself to answer: ‘what
good have I done today?’ Then I bet he’s going to regurgitate that oft-trotted
out passage like ‘ooh, I can’t get my kid into a routine’, or ‘my baby only
sleeps, eats and shits – he don’t have no time for no routine’. Doesn’t he know
that’s a trap for young bloggers?”
You’re right...but also wrong.
No, my child is not in a routine. No I can’t work out how to
get him in (or out of) one. And yes, I wake up at 7am. Every day. Like a loyal,
yapping Pekingese, the alarm is the last thing I fondle at night, and is always
there to embrace me in the morning.
Parenthood, dear friends, has engrained in me routine and
predictability. I leave at 8, after washing the dishes, and return at 6. I take
two trains to work and catch two trains home. I change at the same stations. I
read on the train, and if I’m lucky(?) I get to ride the same seat. Arrive home
and put the doggy pants on. Cuddle the baby boy (try and get a few smiles out
of him), wrestle with his over-tiredness by bouncing him for too long on the
fit ball, struggle to set him down to sleep, and then sit down for an hour of
TV.